My (f22) boyfriend (m23) and I have been dating for 4 years now. We started dating when we were fairly young so it hasn’t become serious until recently when we decided to move in together. However, I still feel very young and neither of us have intentions of getting married or settling down anytime soon.
Lately I’ve felt an overwhelming amount of pressure from my SO mom to attend family events that honestly aren’t important to me or my partner. We really want to be more independent! The problem is that his family is used to his brother and sister in law who are much more dependent on them and visit two times a week.
My issue is that I feel that they expect me to act like am already married to my bf and treat them accordingly. There is so much pressure on me/ our relationship to be more serious than I want it to be. They say things like “when you have kids” “when you get married” all the time. I appreciate that they care, but it is getting to be too much.
His family wants me to participate in everything with them and expect me to attend a ton of family gathering. I am a busy 4th year university student who has bigger things to worry about than my SO family gatherings or dinners. Half the time my SO doesn’t even want to go because he wants to be more independent. Not to mention that we live 3 hours away and have to spend 200$ on ferrying over to visit his family.
Am I in the wrong for feeling like they expect too much from me? I just feel such a strong comparison to my boyfriends sister in law and I am not even married into the family yet. I want to enjoy being young and I’m not willing to act like a wife for someone that I don’t know if I will even marry.
TLDR: my boyfriends family is nice but they take our relationship too serious. We are feeling a lot of pressure to act like we are married, but we are still young.
6 comments
It’s totally okay to say “hey, we can make it to A but not to B, C, or D. Can’t wait for E in a few months!”
The key is to stay positive and not frame it with an apology, ever. Frame it like it’s totally okay for you to do this. Take the lead on how this is toned. That way they will be more hesitant to start drama or make it a big negative thing. Always stay positive about it, it makes it harder for them to fight you on it.
You are still young and it’s good that you know what you want and yes you should enjoy your youth without rushing.
When I was 22 I was in the same position and instead of saying no I followed … we rushed to get engaged and I rushed to be the perfect “bride” but never enough as my sister in law. My partner turned more abusive and trying to guilt trap just as his family. I tried to help him to learn to reject what they wanted but it didn’t work. I lost about 7 years of my life and now I am 27 doing my second MSc and having the best partner I could ever wish I had !
Don’t rush and don’t be scared to communicate. You don’t own them nothing. I understand you want to respect them but put yourself first and make your “likes” and “wants” clear!
The title made me wonder what “act like you’re married” would mean in this context. The post makes clear it’s “do a bunch of stuff you wouldn’t want to do even if you were married”.
They’re playing a rhetorical game where they dress up all the specific things they want from you (that neither you nor your BF actually want for yourselves) as being about *marriage* rather than being about *them*. That way they can exploit all the pressure society and culture exerts around the topic of marriage, serious relationships, “growing up”, etc. to say “if you don’t do what we want the way we want, it shows you’re an immature child and a failure”. Don’t fall for it. BF can say no to many of the invites if he doesn’t actually want to attend, and you can join him *sometimes* (assuming you would like to have some contact with his family) and work on sidestepping any attempt to put weird expectations on you.
First i would say you shouldn’t have moved in together. You should live separately or with roommates. Just my opinion. I lived with my ex at your age too. Worst decision for me lol. I was like you, no interest in marriage but unfortunately once you move in the lines can get blurred for one or both parties, including family and friends. Now, that might not be the case here but in any event you need to tell him to draw boundaries with his family for you. Obviously not in a rude way but just let them know hey, we are still very young and we are not focused on marriage. Eventually they’ll get over it.
I think you just have to learn to say no. It may be disappointing to his mom but it’s also not either of your jobs to manage her emotions for her. The sooner you both manage to let go of that need, the better your lives will be. Not to mention her expectations are utterly absurd.
That’s a ridiculously long and expensive trip to be doing regularly. This a BC Ferries journey by any chance? That would be insane if they expected you to take that trip several times a week. I’d do it absolute max 2x a month, more like once every two months more realistically. If they complain about not seeing you enough, they can also come your way.
My sister and brother in law go between Vancouver and Victoria to see his parents for a weekend about 6x a year. And even that is a bit much sometimes and my sister will stay behind at times. They’re also only increased to that level because his parents are getting very elderly and need a little extra support now. In the years past they went to his home 1-2x a year. They’re also both in their late thirties, have no kids, and are doing very well financially so they can afford the travel no problem.
I think you can mix it up in how you start setting boundaries with them. For eg. “It’s a long and expensive journey for us to make, we can’t do it more than once a month.” “Oh, we’re not close to marriage or kids yet, I’d prefer if we didn’t speak in those hypotheticals yet. We’re very young.” “Oh! Remember we live quite far away from you, weekly visits just aren’t something that’s in the cards for us.” “We’re happy to come for big occasions but we aren’t able to make the journey so regularly with busy lives back home.” “We’re really enjoying being young and doing our own thing right now.” “We need to balance our free time and visiting my family too, we won’t be able to do another visit for x months.” “No, but thanks for thinking of including us even though we live so far away.”
Ultimately though, this is your bf’s job to manage boundaries with his parents. If that means sitting them down and honestly expressing where he’s at, so be it.
You also don’t have to go with him every time by any means. Live your own life and let him handle mommy and daddy.
It sounds like even if you were married, you two wouldn’t be attending these things.
Some people choose to be very emeshed with their family as adults. Others choose to have more relationships that don’t prioritize parents so highly.
My partner and I are the second. We’re treated like a adults in a serious relationship. There is an expectation that we eventually get married but that’s also treated like our business with them a bit curious but that’s about it.
You are pretty young though and there’s this natural awkward period of trying to figure out what a relationship with your parents as adults looks and feels like. Sounds like you two are mostly caught in that with the added weirdness of how they view your relationship.